


triad

by onakissgodknows



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Epilogue, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Found Family, Getting Together, How Do I Tag This, Multi, reylo mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22235278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onakissgodknows/pseuds/onakissgodknows
Summary: Rey from nowhere walked into the desert on Tatooine, but Rey Skywalker is walking out.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 1
Kudos: 89





	triad

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic, among other things, about Finn/Poe/Rey entering a relationship together as well as offering my take on the end of TRoS.
> 
> I don't ship Reylo but I'm also not an anti and this fic is canon compliant, so Reylo is addressed in a way that I feel matches Rey's canon feelings about Ben Solo. If that's something that you aren't okay with reading then perhaps this isn't for you.

After the celebration, they fly back to the Resistance base, because it’s the closest most of them have to home. It’s also because they haven’t held Leia’s memorial yet, and in spite of the victory, there’s a profound sadness that settles in during the quiet moments amongst those who knew her.

The joy feels muted without her. She should have lived to see this day.

And yet, as Rey stands before Leia’s memorial, she wonders how Leia would feel if she could see Rey now.

“I know I failed you,” Rey says, and she kneels next to the bed where Leia had died, already adorned with trinkets placed there to memorialize her. Rey sets Leia’s lightsaber amongst the others. Inexplicably, her eyes begin to fill with tears. She folds her hands in her lap, looking down at her fingers as she twines them together. “I wanted to bring Ben home for you. I know you knew what I did, that there was good left in him. I wish you could have seen for yourself.”

Leia was strong in the Force. Rey knows that it’s likely Leia knew, even as she died, that Ben was on the verge of turning back to the Light. Turn he did. He saved Rey’s life, and then –

Gone in an instant.

Rey closes her eyes. She should be happy they won the war, but they’ve lost so much. Two generations of Skywalkers wiped out in a single day.

Hopefully, Rey reaches out with her mind, just praying that there might still be remnants of her connection with Ben, praying that she might find life on the other end, but –

Nothing.

“He’s gone,” Rey says to Leia. _And I’m alone_.

She should be happy, really. Her mind is her own once more. No more fear of somebody else’s thoughts intruding on hers. No worrying that when she turns around she’ll see someone she never invited, no more fear of being followed, of risking her friends’ safety simply by being near them – but she doesn’t feel happy, she just feels _alone_. Alone again like when her parents left her on Jakku – alone, the way she’d felt when she learned who her grandfather really was – she’d needed to believe that Ben could be saved. Having hope for Ben gave Rey hope for herself. Hope that she wasn’t predestined to follow the path her grandfather took. If there was anyone in the galaxy who could have understood that war she felt within her it would be Ben Solo, and Ben was gone.

“I’m so sorry, Leia,” Rey says, and scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“You really don’t have to be sorry,” says a voice behind her, and with a start, Rey turns, but sees only Poe, looking more tired than she’s ever seen him. He’s still in his orange flight gear, and slowly he starts towards her. “We never would have won if not for you.” When he reaches Rey, he sighs, then sits down across from Rey. “I could sleep for ten years.”

“Me too,” Rey says.

“You know, the funeral’s tomorrow,” Poe says, looking at Leia’s memorial rather than at Rey, “but there’s still the celebration tonight.”

Rey shakes her head. “I don’t feel much like celebrating,” she says, still fighting back tears.

Poe nods. He’s lost in his own thoughts. “I’m sorry he died,” Poe says, and it’s curt. Abrupt. Poe has never been one to put much stock in the idea that Kylo Ren could return to the light, and Rey could never begrudge him for it. He’s never talked to her about how he met Finn, but Finn has told her the story, in hushed tones away from Poe’s earshot.

Poe has never spoken about what Kylo Ren did to him either, but Rey has seen the way he spits his name with contempt, eyes flashing with hot anger whenever he needs to speak of him.

Rey could never speak to Poe of what transpired before Ben died. She doesn’t quite understand it herself, but the fact that Poe has the capacity in him to see Rey’s grief and to express his sorrow for her even though he doesn’t share it….Poe Dameron is a singularly fascinating and wonderful human being. “I couldn’t expect you to understand,” Rey says. “But thank you for saying that. He did come back to the Light, just before….” She trails off, finding herself struggling to say it out loud.

Poe grunts. “After my parents died, Leia was the closest thing I had to family. I know more than most how much Ren’s betrayal hurt her.” He finally looks at Rey, warm brown eyes meeting hers. “I wish she had the opportunity to see her son again. I wish he hadn’t made the choices he made and that he’d never hurt any of us. I know Leia would be grateful to you for trying to bring him home.” When Rey doesn’t answer, Poe says, “She loved you, Rey.”

That alone nearly makes her burst into tears all over again.

“I know I’m just a pilot,” Poe continues, “but I can’t think of anyone better to carry on Leia’s family legacy.”

The Skywalkers may not be as gone as they seem. Rey manages a watery smile at Poe. “Never _just_ a pilot. One _hell_ of a pilot, actually.” As Finn would say. She sighs and shakes her head again. “I just feel so – “

“Empty,” Poe says, and he’s gazing at Leia’s memorial again. “I knew when I signed up that we might not win the war. I never thought about the fact that even if we won, it would be at this kind of cost…..” Poe places a hand over his mouth, shaking his head.

Rey reaches out and seizes his hand, and Poe twists his fingers into hers, gripping it tight. She can’t tell him it’ll be all right. She knows it will, now that the war is won, but that won’t stop how Poe feels now. How _she_ feels. The people they’ve lost, those they could have saved. Leia should have lived. “Leia loved you too. So much.”

“I know,” Poe says. He shakes his head and sighs. “Everything happened so fast the last few days, I feel like I haven’t even had the chance to process that she’s not – that I won’t turn around and see her.”

Poe will always be turning around and hoping to find Leia, and Rey will forever be looking over her shoulder for Leia’s son.

“Let’s say I don’t blame you if you’re not incandescently happy today,” Poe says with a wry smile. He’s holding her hand so tight her fingers feel almost numb, but neither of them want to let go. 

“Right,” Rey says. She lifts her hand to her face and feels tears there. She’s been crying without really realizing it. Quickly she lets go of Poe and turns her face away, feeling awkward for crying in front of him – after all, he’s the one who’s known Leia for years, he’s the one she considered like a son, but Poe touches her lightly on the hand.

“It’s okay,” Poe says gently. “I said I wouldn’t blame you.”

Rey looks back at him, crying openly now. “What good is winning if you can’t save everyone?”

Poe shakes his head; he doesn’t have an answer for her, just opens his arms. “Come here.”

Physical affection is something Rey is still getting used to. She remembers pulling away from Finn’s hands in the early days of their friendship, remembers the shock of the first time they hugged. Still, she lets herself fall into Poe’s arms and sob. She cries for Ben Solo, first of all, then she cries for Leia, who should have lived to see her son return, she cries for Luke, who spent too long in exile, for Finn and the years he wasted serving the First Order, for Poe and the rebels he lost, and she cries for herself, for the lonely child abandoned on Jakku, the girl still searching for where she belongs.

She cries until all she can manage are dry sobs, and she feels Poe’s unshaven cheek pressed against her forehead, and realizes his face is damp and he’s crying too. “Poe,” she chokes out.

“I’ve got you.”

She’s always found him so trying. Such a difficult man. They butt heads because they’re both so stubborn, but Poe always feels so deeply, even though he can’t use the Force Rey can feel emotion radiating off him in waves. She wraps her arms around him, pulling herself against his chest and feels his heartbeat.

Alive, alive, they’re both alive, and Finn is alive, and what more could Rey ask for?

Finn. “Where’s Finn?” Rey asks, and she feels Poe tense around her.

“I think he was with Rose,” Poe says, guarded. “Do you want me to find him?”

Rey shakes her head and pulls out of his embrace enough to meet his eyes. “I know you love him too,” she says, and hopes he knows what she means.

Poe averts his eyes. “I don’t – “

Rey puts a hand on his face. “It’s okay.”

Poe, for once, seems lost for words. He covers Rey’s hand on his face with his own, his breath quickening, and he opens his mouth to speak. “Rey, I – “

“There you are!” Heavy footsteps dash toward them, and then Finn is there, kneeling next to them, out of breath and wearing the brown jacket with red trim he took from Poe what seems like years ago. “I’ve been looking all over the place – Rey!” He’s noticed her tearstained face. “Are you all right?” He glances at Poe questioningly. “Poe?”

“I’m all right,” she says. Even though she isn’t, she’s better than she was. She reaches for Finn and grasps his hand. He takes it, still gazing at her with such concern etched across his face that it makes Rey’s heart ache. She squeezes his hand and all she can think to say is, “I’m so happy you’re here.”

At that, Poe gently touches her shoulder and gets to her feet. “I’ll leave you two.”

Finn says “No!” just as Rey says “No, please stay!” and they both grab Poe by the arm. A little stunned, Poe raises his eyebrows and slowly sinks back down to their level.

There they sit, the three of them, a triangle in front of Leia’s memorial, a woman who loved all three of them.

Triad.

The word pops unbidden to Rey’s mind and for a second she almost thinks one of them said it to her, in her thoughts, but as she reaches out again like she’s searching for Ben Solo she finds nothing – just Poe’s emotion cascading in waves and soft hums radiating off Finn.

 _Finn_.

They’re all only here because of Finn – Finn saved Poe, Finn saved Rey in a manner of speaking, though he’ll always insist that _she_ saved _him_ (he’s far too humble). Finn was the first person who made Rey feel like she might belong somewhere, though the universe seems set on tearing them away from each other.

No more, Rey resolves. Where Rey goes, Finn goes.

Finn is the one who introduced Rey to Poe, Poe who looked at her with wonder and awe, and Rey _still_ isn’t used to being looked at that way. He doesn’t look at her like that quite as often nowadays but sometimes Rey still catches him doing it, usually if she’s using the Force.

Conversely, where Finn goes, Poe goes. He’s been following Finn since the day Finn pulled off his Stormtrooper mask and said he needed a pilot.

Rey can’t blame him for that. The first time she took Finn’s hand willingly, she’d never wanted to let go.

Here, after the war ended, Rey kneels on the stone floor with the two men who represent as much family as she’s ever known. Finn’s still gazing at her with worry, Poe still a little shocked they’ve insisted he say ( _can he truly not see how they both feel for him, even with all his stubbornness and insecurity and flaws?_ ).

Rey doesn’t know what to say, just puts her arms around them both and draws them into a hug. Finn gratefully hugs her back, clinging to the back of her shirt and pressing his face against her shoulder. His other arm finds its way around Poe and pulls him tighter into their little circle and Rey is engulfed by both of them, warm and safe and calm for the first time, maybe in her whole life.

 _I love you both so much_.

She doesn’t say it out loud because she doesn’t know if it’s true – Rey isn’t sure she’s ever really loved anybody, isn’t sure she’d recognize the feeling even if it was there.

This, though, Rey thinks as she smooths one hand down Finn’s back and tangled the other in Poe’s dark hair, this might be close to it.

“Rey,” Finn breathes against her skin. “I have to tell you something.”

Rey nods. “I know. What is it?”

“I think I can use the Force.”

It’s so simultaneously shocking and unsurprisingly that Rey can’t help but start laughing. “I know,” she says, squeezing both of them closer to her. “I could feel it for ages.”

“You could?” Finn says indignantly, even as Poe, too, starts shaking with laughter next to him. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

Rey lifts her head enough to see both their faces, and smiles at him. “I thought it was something you ought to figure out on your own.”

After the memorial, the three of them start sleeping in Poe’s room at the Resistance base, the three of them somehow curled up in a bed that had seemed small for Poe by himself, but they make it work. Rey sleeps in leggings and a plain white shift Finn found for her. (Poe smiled the first time he saw her in it and said it had been Leia’s.) Finn sleeps flat on his back with Rey curled up in a little ball next to him, and Poe hardly sleeps at all.

After the memorial, Rey starts _dreaming_.

They aren’t bad dreams, just so very vivid that Rey knows they’re not just dreams, they’re memories, though not her own.

In her dreams, there’s a woman with a small son on a desert planet, and the woman loves her son with all her heart. There’s an angry and frightened boy who holds his mother as she dies, and the angry boy grows into a powerful man with a beautiful and equally powerful woman by his side. He loves her with all his heart.

This, the dream tells her, is Anakin Skywalker and his family. His mother, Shmi, his wife, Padme. Rey knows their names, learned them from Leia while she was training, but she has never known their faces.

The dream shifts and she sees Luke, childish and impatient as a boy on a desert planet, Luke, a young man training to be a Jedi. Luke, rejecting the Dark Side without a second thought and believing in the good that still dwells in Anakin’s heart. Ben is here too, the dream tells her, but no, not her Ben, this Ben’s true name is Obi-Wan and he’s strong and gentle and a powerful Jedi like Luke. He smiles at Rey in the dream, and Rey feels like she knows him.

Then Leia growing up on a long-gone planet, Leia learning she has a brother, that she’s not _alone_. Leia training with her lightsaber. Leia, steadfast and regal and stubborn. Leia, filled with fierce love for Luke, for Han, for her son Ben right up to the end.

“Rey,” says Ben Solo’s voice, which startles her, but before she can get over the shock, Luke’s voice says her name.

“Rey.”

“Rey,” says Leia.

“Rey,” says Anakin Skywalker.

“Rey,” says Obi-Wan Kenobi.

_I am all the Jedi….._

Rey wakes with a start in the dead of night. Finn sleeps soundly to her right, but the space to her left that Poe is supposed to occupy is empty. It’s not such a surprise. Poe is almost never there when Rey wakes up.

She slips out of bed, leaving Finn asleep, and tiptoes out to look for Poe.

She finds him sitting next to a window, gazing out at the night sky. He’s fully dressed, right down to his boots, like he expects he’ll be going somewhere even though there’s been nowhere to go, no battles to fight since they won the war. He’s sitting in a sterile white chair, built for design over comfort, with his feet up on the table in front of him and his chin resting in his hand.

Poe hears her footsteps, soft as they are, and glances over his shoulder. “What are you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Rey says, and sits down in the chair next to him. “What about you?”

“We’re in the same boat,” he sighs, and rubs his eyes. “I don’t know, I feel like I’ve been fighting for so long I don’t know how to not be at war.”

Rey doesn’t know what to say, so she just places a comforting hand on his arm, and Poe gratefully covers her hand with his.

“You really should try to get some sleep,” she says gently. “Finn is.”

“I’m telling you, Rey, I can’t,” he says with the barest note of irritability in his voice.

She drags her chair closer to his so she can rest her head on his shoulder as she holds his arm, and Poe turns to press his lips to the top of her head. “Can’t you Jedi mind trick me to sleep?” he asks, still sounding a little bitter.

Rey smiles. “Unfortunately, that only works on the weak-minded. Probably would have tried it on you well before now if I didn’t know you’d resist it.”

“Don’t pretend you know me,” Poe teases. “You have no idea how weak-minded I can be.”

Rey laughs softly. “No, you’re far too strong for that. I’m afraid the only person you’re fighting against is yourself at this point.”

Poe sighs. “Shame.”

Rey stays quiet a moment longer and then says, “Poe, I had a dream about Leia.” She sits up to look at him and he gazes at her with interest. “I think there’s somewhere I need to go.”

Poe frowns. “Go? Already? Rey, you can’t leave now, we need you here. What’s left of the Resistance – we’re trying to rebuild a world here, you think you can just leave Finn and I - !”

“Poe,” Rey cuts him off hastily. “I don’t mean I want to leave you. I need you to fly me somewhere. Can you do that for me?”

A smile begins to spread across Poe’s face as she processes what she’s saying. “Yeah. Yeah, I can fly you anywhere. When do you want to leave? In the morning? I can get the Falcon ready!”

He’s so suddenly _vibrant_ , so enthusiastic Rey can’t help but laugh. She doesn’t much care when they go, but it’s clear _he_ needs to leave in the morning, so she’ll roll with it. “Yes. Yes, we can leave in the morning. I’ll tell Finn when he wakes up.”

“Great,” Poe says with barely-masked delight. He swings his feet off the table they’ve been resting on and stands up, then takes Rey’s hand to help her to her feet. He kisses her on the cheek, already distracted, already going over what he needs to get, what he needs to do to prepare the Millennium Falcon for a trip. “You go get some sleep.”

“Hey,” she says, holding his hand tighter before he can pull away. “Only if you promise you’ll come and get a couple hours’ rest yourself. At _least_ a couple hours.”

“Yeah, yeah, promise,” Poe says, and he’s clearly hardly heard her, just said what she wants to hear so she’ll let him run off and start _doing_ things. She lets him go and he practically runs as he heads down to the docks where the Falcon is waiting.

Rey goes back to their room and crawls back into bed next to Finn, who wakes up a little.

“What’s going on?” he asks, sitting up.

“Nothing,” Rey says, grabbing his arm and curling up close to him. “Only that we need to get Poe a hobby.”

Finn peers across Rey to see that Poe is, once again, absent, and groans sleepily. “Can’t people die from lack of sleep?”

“Don’t worry. I made him promise he’d come back to bed,” Rey says. She rests her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes, waiting for dreamless sleep to come.

“Closing in on Tatooine!” Poe calls happily from the cockpit. Rey and Finn are immersed in an intense game of Dejarik. Neither of them are very good, but Finn is marginally better by virtue of having more practice playing with Chewbacca and C-3PO.

Neither Chewie nor Threepio are here now, just BB-8, rolling up and down the hallways of the Falcon, beeping happily. Rey would have gladly brought C-3PO and R2-D2 along, but Finn had thought it might be nice if it was just the three of them.

The three of them, plus BB-8. BB-8 was non-negotiable in Poe’s eyes, and Rey was fond of having the little droid around, too.

Rey groans as one of Finn’s pieces delivers a death blow to hers. “So unfair.” She could have used the Force to gain the upper hand, but that would be cheating, and anyway, Finn would have known and caught her at it. His Force sensitivity is already stronger than he realizes, even though she’s barely begun to teach him.

“Would you two get up here and help me land this thing?” Poe demands, a little more playful urgency in his voice now. Finn and Rey abandon their game and hurry to the cockpit, where Rey slides into the copilot’s seat.

They drop into Tatooine’s atmosphere, a desert stretching out beneath them. Finn frowns. “It’s Jakku all over again.”

“Don’t speak ill of the place we met,” Poe says, wounded.

Finn frowns harder. “We _met_ on Starkiller Base. You almost _died_ on Jakku.”

“Details,” Poe says dismissively. “Rey? Tell me where we’re landing.”

Rey can feel it calling to her, the place she needs to go. “Further east from here, I think. But not far. It’s beyond Mos Eisley.”

“Remind me again why you had to come here?” Poe asks, expertly navigating a little turbulence.

Rey thinks for a moment. She’s not entirely sure herself. “It just feels right,” she finally says. “Luke grew up here. His father was born here, and his mother lived her whole life here.”

“Vader’s mother?” Poe asks.

“Anakin Skywalker’s,” Rey corrects him gently, and Poe doesn’t argue. The Skywalker family’s roots can all be traced back here to Tatooine. With Leia’s home planet gone, she’d want to be as close to her brother as possible.

The place Rey’s been drawn to is not hard to find, but Rey has Poe land a short distance away so Rey can walk the final stretch on her own. Finn and Poe offer to come with her, but it feels like a task for Rey and Rey alone. She kisses both of them on the cheek before disembarking the ship. “I won’t be long.”

She walks, trudging her way through the desert with the sun beating down on her, and it does remind her of Jakku, but there’s no oppressive loneliness crushing her from within. This version of herself has someone waiting for her. People who could never walk away.

She eventually reaches the place she’s seeking. It’s an abandoned farm, half-destroyed, the other half buried in sand from years of neglect. It’s the place Luke Skywalker grew up, the place Shmi was laid to rest.

It doesn’t take her long to do what she came to do. She takes Luke and Leia’s lightsabers and buries them in the sand.

 _I hope this gives you both peace_.

When a passing woman asks Rey her name, it falls out of her mouth unbidden, like it’s been hers all along and it’s just been waiting for her to choose it. “Rey Skywalker.”

 _A thousand generations live in you now_. Rey can feel them all, welling up inside her, surrounding her with their warmth. Leia walks ahead of her, guiding her way. Ben’s hand is on her shoulder, a reminder of what once was. Luke stands at her side, solid and strong. Beyond them are more, dozens, maybe hundreds, every Jedi who’s ever lived now living on in and through Rey.

Rey will not be the last Jedi.

As the two suns set overhead, Rey knows it’s time to return to the Falcon.

The last time she arrived by spaceship on a desert planet, she’d watched those she loved most fly off and leave her. Finn and Poe have been waiting a long time, but she knows they’re waiting.

Rey from nowhere walked into the desert on Tatooine, but Rey Skywalker is walking out.

She returns to the Falcon to find Poe and Finn both sitting on the ramp, watching the sunset. Finn’s face breaks into a grin when he sees her coming, and he runs out to greet her with a hug. “Poe was just wondering whether we ought to come after you,” he says. “But I knew you were all right.”

Rey smiles widely. “See? You’re starting to feel it too.” The Force is strong in Finn, thrumming through him in warm waves Rey can feel whenever she’s near him. She wonders how she feels to Finn.

Finn takes her hand and they walk back aboard the Falcon. Poe puts an arm around her and hugs her to his side in welcome, while BB-8 rolls around delightedly.

She slides into the cockpit with Poe, Finn standing between them, and Poe starts the Falcon.

“Where to now, my loves?” he asks with a cocky, wolfish grin as the ship lifts off the ground.

Rey smiles as she takes Finn’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Look. I can't fathom an interpretation of the ending of TRoS that doesn't involve Rey immediately getting on board the Falcon (or her x-wing, I'm not picky) and flying back to her family. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
